Mothers of children with autism make short film

By Mehmet Kara

ISTANBUL (AA) - Mothers of children with autistic spectrum disorder recounted the difficulties and fears they have faced in a short film titled “After Me” after receiving theater and drama training.

Theater and drama instructor Benek Cakmak provided the free training to the 16 mothers for two and half months as part of a project supported by the Turkish Autism Support and Education Foundation (TODEV).

The mothers came together to narrate their concern about “What will happen to my child after me?”

With the short film, they wanted to show the social adaptation problems and difficulties they encountered since their children were diagnosed with autism.

“Mothers of children with autism have very difficult conditions. That's why I thought they didn't spare time for themselves. I volunteered to give them theater and drama classes every day for two and a half months,” Cakmak told Anadolu Agency.

“I tried to help them realize their own emotions. This training became a therapy for them.”

Cakmak added that the most important thing in this project was that mothers conveyed their own experiences and their children took part in the short film.

Eda Yuce, who directed the film, expressed her happiness to be a part of the team set up to explain the experiences of the mothers.

She said they experienced emotional moments many times while filming and that a mother of a child with autism made an effort to explain the emotions she experienced since her child was diagnosed with autism.

TODEV Foundation Family Coordinator Eylem Kiymaz said she has an 8-year-old boy with autism and the mothers made the biggest contribution to the short film.

“After our theater training, we could not perform our shows due to the coronavirus pandemic. We wanted to express ourselves with a short film. We started our project with 16 mothers of children with autism. We all told our sad and happy memories and talked about our fears.”